<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong &amp; amnesia by Wolvesandwerewolves</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950835">hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong &amp; amnesia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves'>Wolvesandwerewolves</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I’m With You in Rockland [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective Disorder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:35:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,824</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25950835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolvesandwerewolves/pseuds/Wolvesandwerewolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben stays with Klaus in the psychiatric unit of the hospital.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hargreeves &amp; Klaus Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I’m With You in Rockland [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865728</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong &amp; amnesia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>literally just gonna post this one and go fam I took sleeping pills and i am f u z z y</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It takes Klaus almost two weeks to start to come back to himself. </p><p></p><div>
  <p>Ben stays with him the entire time. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>September passes, and with October comes their birthday. Both Vanya and even Diego visit him on the first. The conversation isn’t much of one. Vanya carries most of it, talking about school and the orchestra, or trying to get Klaus to open up. Diego makes awkward small talk, but most of the time he just listens intently or glances around the room like he’s searching for someone not there.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben wishes somehow he could do something. Or say something, even. But he’s learned to stay silent during the day. He doesn’t want Klaus to talk with him in front of the doctors and nurses that are there to help him. They can’t see him. They don’t know he’s here.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The hospital is hard to describe. It’s nothing really like Ben would have expected, from the books he reads or the movies he watches. There is no Nurse Ratched here, no Randle McMurphy. Most of the nurses, doctors and patients here are all respectful and kind. It’s nothing like <em>Shutter Island</em>, dreary and isolated from the rest of the world—it’s an ordinary hospital, stores and restaurants on the same block. It’s less than two miles away from their apartment. It has windows, never able to open, but free of bars. Outside, the skies are almost always crisp, clear and blue. On the other side of the glass, the world moves on; traffic flows in the streets, pedestrians jog on the cracked sidewalks, and everyday the trees seem a little more bare. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Inside, it’s hard to feel like time is flowing at all. Klaus is twenty-three, now, and Halloween is nearly looming, but it still feels like they’re stuck inside a snow globe, and the season, the scenery, will never change.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Occasionally, a new magazine will be added to the pile on the table in the lounge. The calendar hanging on the wall behind the front desk has a new red X added to the row every night, when it’s lights out and Ben follows Klaus to bed. And the weatherman on tv wears a different tie every day.  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But aside from that, everything is much too static. Ben has worn the same sweatshirt and leather jacket since the day he died, and he’s grown used to it. But it feels so odd to see his brother wearing too-similar and too-ordinary, stringless sweatpants and sweatshirts day after day. He’s used to seeing Klaus in black ripped jeans and bright t-shirts, tie-dye cropped sweatshirts and chiffon skirts. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He knows being here is helping. He can tell when Klaus stops refusing to take his meds or eat. Or when he sleeps through the night for the first time in too long, and doesn’t ask Ben how the maggots got inside his wardrobe. It’s relieving, when the rest of the ghosts start to fade away, and there’s no one to scream or mumble at them all throughout the day or night. And Klaus doesn’t look over his shoulder as often, or answer to a voice only he can hear. So he knows it’s helping. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But Ben still hates it here. Something or maybe everything about this place makes him feel uneasy. He’s always on guard, feels almost like he’s being watched when he knows it’s impossible. Maybe he’s just tired, if that’s something ghosts can feel, he thinks he feels it.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The hospital is an eerie fusion between a jail cell and a hotel suite. It’s furnished, couches and chairs with decorative pillows in the lounge room. The coffee table has an assortment of magazines and crossword books. The tv is free to use, even if it’s restricted from playing anything that could be triggering—like the mess of horror movies that is bound to be on this time of year. And there’s art on the walls, colorfully abstract and maybe psychedelic, if someone is on drugs or just happens to be psychotic, like his brother. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The first week they were here, Klaus asked Ben if one of the paintings was moving, and said he didn’t like the way it looked at him. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But aside from that, it’s almost artificially homey. Like a hotel tries to be, comforting and impersonal. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Hotels are easy to drive away from, check out of. This place, they can’t leave. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>And just like a jail, there are ‘guards’ ready to intervene if needed. Like the first week there, when Klaus lashed out at a ghost while he was in the shower, and ended up naked, held down again like he was that night in the ER. He’d thrashed and hyperventilated when they injected him, and then his eyes got glassy and his muscles relaxed. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But that was a week and a half ago. An eternity and a second. Klaus is doing better, now. He’s not paranoid, or plotting with Ben on how to escape, or mockingly waving at Dad through the security cameras. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He’s mostly just bored. Somewhere even maybe toward depressed or apathetic, even if he acts nearly ‘normal’ now.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>They’re in the lounge together. Klaus is sprawled out on the couch, almost casually territorial, leaving no room for anyone else. He has one arm draped over his eyes, thumb from his other hand twisting the ID bracelet around his wrist like a game. Ben sits at the other end of the couch. If he were tangible, his brother’s legs would be resting in his lap. Instead they disappear through his knees like he’s nothing but a hologram. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The dark blue, knitted fleece blanket Vanya had brought with her on their birthday is wrapped halfway around Klaus’s shoulders like a cape, trapped between him and the couch, partially folded underneath him.  It usually sets on his bed, but it must be cold today, even inside. Ben saw dark clouds forming outside the window this morning, before his brother was awake, and the weather man predicted storms for the rest of the day. If he listens hard enough, he can hear the pitter-patter of raindrops. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus sighs again. Ben sighs back. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“I’m so bored,” Klaus groans, exaggerated and dramatic. It makes Ben bite back a smile, hidden behind the shadows of his hood even though Klaus’s eyes are closed. He crosses his legs at the ankle, taps one socked foot against the wooden armrest of the couch. “If only I had someone to read to me.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben scoffs. He glances around, casually studying the people around them. No one seems suspicious of Klaus talking to himself. No one comes to look straight through Ben and tell Klaus, <em>no one’s there.</em> Again.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“I’m not here, remember?” he says. “I mean, I’m here, but don’t talk to me.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus sniffs and somehow he makes it sound casual and mockingly insulted at the same time. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben sighs. “I’ve read <em>Frankenstein</em> to you three times since we’ve been here.” </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus hums. He starts twisting the ID bracelet the other way around his wrist. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“I thought you said you hated that book.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus moves his arm from his face, folds it underneath his head instead. He raises his eyebrows at him. </p>
</div><div>
  <p><em>“I’m</em> starting to hate it by now.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus smiles. He is <em>so annoying. </em></p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben groans. But he flips the book open to the first page, anyway. His brother hums, and closes his eyes again. He starts reading.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Somewhere around chapter two, he sees Klaus stiffen out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t stop reading, but he practically has the book memorized by now. He watches as Klaus slowly lowers his arm again, blink, and look casually over his shoulder.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben bites his lip. Just because he’s doing better doesn’t mean he is better. He folds his thumb inside the book to keep his place, then looks around the room.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>There are two people sitting at the table just behind them, chatting quietly and coloring in notebooks. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>One person sitting in the matching chair next to him, watching <em>The Price is Right.</em></p>
</div><div>
  <p>And another couple in the chairs to his right, one writing in a journal and the other reading <em>Time Magazine</em>.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>There’s also a few people at the desk on the opposite side of the room. And in the corner, a woman with a broken cane, standing in front of a mirror she has no reflection in.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Did you know a group of crows is called a murder? I count twelve people, and a ghost in the corner.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus nods, and yawns, sitting up in his seat and stretching. He swings his feet off of Ben and stands, fingers trembling as he runs them along the strip of bandages on his arm. He slowly turns in a circle as he walks out of the room, still stretching and making it seem natural, like he’s not counting each person in the room.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He’s scary good at acting like nothing is bothering him. It’s a thought that makes Ben feel uncomfortable. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“I don’t see any bugs, either. I don’t hear any music or anything.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus sighs. Ben follows him to the bathroom. He turns the faucet to cold, splashes the water at his face. He wonders what Klaus saw, or heard, or felt but he doesn’t ask. Instead he sits on top of the toilet, and starts to read <em>Frankenstein</em> out loud again.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>At the sink, Klaus laughs softly, then quietly groans. “I fucking hate this book,” he says. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Yeah,” Ben says. He grimaces, snaps the book closed and shoves it back inside his sweatshirt pocket. “Now what?”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus sighs. He can see him rubbing at his eyes in the mirror. The line of his shoulders is stiff and straight. He’s tense. </p>
  <p>“Am I crazy?” he asks, turning to face him. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Ben hesitates. When he first realized Klaus could see him, he didn’t think so. He thought his brother was maybe, actually sane, and no one ever realized it. But he’s not. He has schizophrenia, and it’s scary for none of the reasons it is on tv. But he’s also, just—<em>Klaus. </em>Ben’s brother. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Yes,” Ben says, bluntly. “But that’s okay.” </p>
</div><div>
  <p><em>Just don’t scare me like that, again, </em>he thinks, but he doesn’t want to say it out loud. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus frowns at him, contemplative. His fingers run down the stitches on his arm again, hidden beneath the bandage and his long sleeves. But eventually he nods. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Okay,” he says. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Okay.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus sighs. “Well,” he says, smirking. “Maybe you should read <em>Frankenstein </em>backwards.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“See, this is why you’re in here.” </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus laughs. “Better stop talking to myself. Don’t want anyone to think I’m crazy or something.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>“You are,” Ben says. “But I’m also right here. Still running out of facts, by the way.” </p>
</div><div>
  <p>“Read <em>Frankenstein</em> backwards instead.”</p>
</div><div>
  <p>”You’re hilarious,” Ben deadpans. “And that doesn’t count.” But he tugs the book out of his pocket again. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Klaus grins at him. Ben shakes his head fondly and starts to read.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>xoxox goodnight &lt;3</p><p>Edit: title is from Howl by Allen Ginseng, i forgot last time :( </p><p>Ok now goodnight and love you</p><p>Edit again: what’s up guys, it is now afternoon and im not fuzzy anymore. Lol went back to edit and fix a few grammar mistakes! Also, thank you for comments!!! I tried really hard to be accurate in my portrayal of the hospital even tho i personally have never been admitted to one. i watched a lot of YouTube stories where people talked about their experiences, good and bad, and i tried to encompass both emotions in this piece. i hope i did it justice! Still learning a lot. Ok bye and thank you &lt;3 xoxo</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>